Portage child care centers prepare to reopen

BY EILEEN MCCLORY Reporter

Sunday

May 24, 2020 at 12:01 AM

Some parents may be anticipating May 31 with joy, others with fear.

May 31 is the day child care facilities in Ohio are officially allowed to reopen after most were ordered to close because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When they reopen, they’ll be facing many more restrictions than before the pandemic.

Under the new Ohio Department of Health mandate, no more than six infants or toddlers can be in one classroom, and no more than nine preschool or school-aged children can be in one classroom. Additionally, employees will be required to check for symptoms, and cannot come to work with any symptoms of illness. Children and staff must wash their hands frequently, including before leaving the center.

Child care centers such as Kent Recreation Center School Age Child Care were permitted to remain open, even as most Ohioans stayed home, to provide child care to essential workers. Megan Johns, a recreation specialist at the center, said the first few days the center was open at the beginning of the pandemic, the children who were still attending were surprised to only have five other kids in their classrooms.

"It was hard at first because (the kids) were used to having so many friends there. They were waiting for more kids to come in," Johns said.

Under rules set by the state, ratios of students to teachers have been significantly reduced. At the Kent Recreation Center program, there have been only six kids per classroom and two classrooms, for a total of 12 kids, since April 6. The classrooms will have up to nine kids beginning June 8, when camps will start.

Children won’t be able to intermix between classrooms and siblings, despite their ages, have been put into the same classroom to minimize any potential spread, said Nancy Pizzino, recreation supervisor. So far, everyone has stayed safe and healthy, she said.

Health experts say children are in a lower-risk category than older adults, but can develop symptoms or be asymptomatic carriers of the disease. There have also been recent reports of an inflammatory disease in children believed to be linked to COVID-19.

But while parents and teachers are worried about the possible spread of COVID-19, some teachers are additionally concerned about childhood development. DeAnna White, administrator for the nonprofit Christian Beautiful Blessings School in Aurora, said the preschool is still closed and she cannot reopen the school until the governor gives the go-ahead for schools to reopen.

While she knows the closure is for everyone's health, she’s worried that preschool-aged children will miss major milestones that can’t be made up later. Taking away the child’s friends and keeping them in the house will have a huge impact on their emotions because they don’t know how to communicate that frustration, White said.

White said she was looking for more grants to help cover costs of operating her small business, though she said she was able to get money from the Paycheck Protection Program, which will cover the salaries of her staff for a few months.

Alexis Hall, administrator at the Tiny Town Childcare and Learning Center in Kent, said the child care pandemic license which allowed her to remain open during the closure, meant she went from having between 60 and 75 children at the childcare center to between 20 and 22, so the business, which also operates centers in Painesville and Elyria, has taken a hit.

While a few families whose regular daycares were closed inquired about services, Hall said most of those families made other arrangements, so they have been only watching children who were registered at the center before the pandemic. But she said the roster is filling up quickly again for when the center can reopen.

"We miss our kids that haven’t been here, it’ll be nice to see them as well," she said.

Kimberly Tice, executive director for the Ohio chapter of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, said some child care centers are concerned families might not come back. Others are unable to get the cleaning supplies they need to clean the centers. Still others are worried the reduced ratios of children to teachers will cut too far into what are already very slim profit margins.

Julia Hohner, communications and development director for Groundwork Ohio, a nonpartisan organization in Columbus that advocates for early learning and development, noted child care centers, which are mostly small businesses run by women, were operating on razor thin margins before the pandemic. Low ratios for the centers that obtained a pandemic license meant some providers who have stayed open have been losing money.

The Center for American Progress, a Washington D.C. think tank, estimated in April that about 45% of childcare in Ohio, or about 204,765 slots, could disappear because of the economic impact from the coronavirus.

Groundwork Ohio has been calling on Congress to provide financial help to childcare providers long-term to make sure the care is available for families that need it.

"Without any subsidies, there’s a worry that a lot of programs would be forced to close," Hohner said.